For Their Own Good
by MrSpockify
Summary: As a hunter, John isn't always the best father. He can be negligent, controlling, and, sometimes, dangerous. But to his thinking, it's all for the best. Series of one-shots with bad father John.
1. Buried Alive

"Now once I give you the signal what do you do?" John leaned on a dirty shovel and looked down at his fourteen year-old son.

"We've gone over it," Dean replied, crossing his arms. He tried to avoid looking at the six-foot deep hole his dad had dug, afraid he might slip and fall to the bottom and get stuck. A wooden box was situated at the bottom of the hole, an empty coffin waiting for a corpse. Dean gulped and looked up at his dad. He seemed grave, no pun intended.

"Well you better hope we've gone over it enough," his dad snapped, sticking the shovel into the ground. He stepped up next to the grave and gave it a once-over, then beckoned his son to his side. "I'll help you in," he offered.

Dean made his way to the edge of the grave, feeling his heart speed up. His palms were wet and his stomach clenched painfully, but he tried his best not to let it show. If his dad thought he was going to freak out, he'd never let this continue. But Dean needed to do this. He needed this practice, so he had to pretend he was okay with it. He swallowed his fear and grabbed his dad's hand, letting himself be lowered into a bed meant for a dead man. When he settled himself into the wood, he couldn't help but feel like he was about to earn the title that came with the coffin.

"You have the walkie-talkie?" John asked, too far away from where he stood above the grave. Dean nodded timidly, fingering the device in his pocket. He took in a wet breath that tasted like dirt before he maneuvered the lid on top of himself. The box felt hollow and cold. It felt like death. "You ready?" John yelled down to him. Dean nodded before he realized he couldn't be seen, then he cleared his throat and tried to yell back, sounding much quieter than he wished.

"Ready," he called, closing his eyes. He counted to three before he heard the first shovel full of dirt collapse down onto the lid, hitting with a loud, heavy thump. He counted each time his dad sent another clump of dirt until there was such a large layer above him, he couldn't hear anything else. Dean felt like he could physically feel the dirt pressing down on him, forcing air out of his lungs and suffocating him.

Dean fought the urge to panic, knowing it would only bring him pain and anger from his dad. He forced his breathing to slow down, trying to calm his thrumming heart. He wanted desperately to escape, but he knew he had to wait for the signal. His hand grasped for the talkie in his pocket, thinking it was taking too long. Certainly something had gone wrong? His dad would never take this long to fill a grave. What if something had happened? What if he was yelling for Dean to help, but Dean couldn't hear him? What if—

"Go," John's voice piped up from his pocket, and Dean's eyes flew open. He wriggled a little, panic rising in his chest again, before he took a deep breath to focus.

_Kick out the lid._ Dean experimentally poke at the ceiling of the coffin with his toes, thinking the weight above him was certainly too much for him to kick in. With a rush of adrenaline that was more bred from fear than anything else, he kicked up at the lid with both feet a few times. He let out a sigh of relief— a mistake on his part, because he wasn't supposed to waste air— when the wood gave in, crashing down on his legs with the overwhelming weight of all the dirt.

_Get into a vertical position. _Dean, at this point almost hyperventilating, reached toward his feet, yelping when he hit his head on the broken lid. His throat felt tight, and he was afraid he would break down sobbing and either die, or embarrass himself by having to be saved by his dad. Bent on trying to at least survive, Dean maneuvered his body uncomfortably until his was in a sitting position, and at that point he definitely felt like he was going to die.

Dirt piled down around him, constricting him like a python. It was coming from everywhere, clogging up his nose and ears, getting into his eyes and making them water, and tumbling into his mouth, choking him and making his panic rise.

_Don't stop moving. _Dean shook his head in a futile attempt at clearing all his passageways before starting to move. He made every muscle on his body twist and shake, afraid if he didn't keep something in motion, it'd get caught in the dirt and mean death. His foot momentarily became encased beneath him, and he opened his mouth in fright, letting in a mouthful of dirt. With nowhere left to spit it out, he pulled his foot free and continued on, his eyes stinging and his mouth aching.

_Climb to the top. _Dean reached above him and grabbed anything he could get ahold of, trying to pull himself up. Instead, the dirt he grabbed fell down on top of his head, trapping him further. His heart pounded loudly in his chest, and Dean could feel himself running out of time. He needed air, and his lungs screamed at him for it. Purely out of desperation, he reached both his arms upward and pushed off with his feet, almost in a swimming motion. The dirt was thick and heavy, but he kept moving, feeling like he was going nowhere.

Suddenly one of his hands felt a cool breeze run over it, and Dean foolishly opened his eyes in surprise. With excruciating pain all over his body, he pressed on, his heart swelling as each inch of his body was exposed to the same cool wind. When his head and shoulders breached the surface, Dean was lifted by two strong hands, pulled from the grave and set beside it.

He rolled over, coughing out as much dirt as he could. His eyes still stung with the stuff, and he could barely hear with what was crammed into his ears. Dean curled into a tight ball, his skin crawling and his limbs shaking.

"Well done, Dean," John commented, grabbing the shovel and tossing it into the trunk of the Impala. "Let's get home so you can wash up."

Dean rolled onto all fours, trying to push himself up but failing. His arms were weak, and his joints felt overstrained. He wanted to ask for help, but he knew he couldn't. One, because that would show his dad how hard this had been on him. And two, because he wasn't positive his throat was in good enough shape to even form the words.

Slobbering mud down his chin and onto his shirt, Dean shakily stood, still feeling as if he was covered in six feet of dirt. He limped along behind his dad, wondering what lessons other kids learned with their fathers. They were probably learning how to shave, or how to drive a car. But his family was damn weird. He already knew how to drive a car, and now he knew how to get out of being buried alive. He had been taught how to kill monsters, and how to protect himself being killed.

Yeah. His family was damn weird.

* * *

**Notes: **So I just keep imagining that John was a fairly terrible dad, and he kept doing things like this to his boys, thinking he was helping them. I'm thinking this is just going to be a collection of one-shots showing different times where he was a bad dad to Sam and Dean. If anybody has any ideas about a chapter, lemme know. It'd be appreciated, and I'll give you credit, of course. :)


	2. Moving Schools

**Notes: **jakefan asked for something about school, and CaptialC12 suggested John not caring how Sam felt about moving schools. Thank you very much to the both of you! I hope you like it. :)

* * *

Sam was completely distraught; more than usual, actually. In one hand he was gripping the strap of his backpack with white-knuckled fingers, and his other hand was holding tight to the door handle, threatening to open it up with small turns every so often. His face was distorted with upset and angry creases, and his eyes were wet and red-rimmed. Across from him, John stood with his legs apart, a stance Dean had seen far too often. The two of them looked like they were squaring off for a fight, each ready to draw their gun and shoot.

Well, Dean thought, they sort of were.

Dean had been packing his things when the altercation started. His brother announced that he wasn't going to leave, not this time. John, of course, told him to shut up and start packing. That's when Sam grabbed his school things and started shouting, and their dad started shouting back. Now Dean was silently sitting on the bed, watching the two of them yell and refuse to listen.

"Put your bag down and get ready," John ordered, pointing a finger. "We're leaving in ten minutes." If anything, Sam gripped his backpack tighter, his fist shaking with the effort. Actually, his whole body was shaking. He looked like he would either snap and kill someone, or break down sobbing on the floor. Dean didn't want either of them to happen.

"_I'm not leaving_," his little brother screamed, and by the sound of his voice, he meant it. "I finally found a school where I'm not a _freak_. I have friends for the first time in my life, and I don't want to leave them." Dean wanted to leap from the bed and hold Sam. At every school they had gone to recently, he had been bullied. If this school had people who didn't mock him and shove him into lockers… Dean could see why he wanted to stay.

"You are in eighth grade, Sam," John spat with a harsh laugh. "You won't even remember this school when you're older. You'll be in a new school next week, and you can make new friends there. Get over it and get packed." He turned around and grabbed a duffel bag, slinging it over his shoulder.

"You don't get it," Sam shouted, dropping his backpack with a loud thump. He stepped away from the door and toward their dad, balling his fists up. "I'm not a freak at this school because no one knows who my family is. Wherever we go, you _always_ show up and make me look bad. Nobody here knows that my dad carries shotguns in the backseat, or that my brother puts salt in his backpack instead of books. Nobody here has seen the devil's traps you carved into our shoes. Nobody here has seen the fucking _mess_ our family is, and I actually want to keep it that way!"

"Watch your mouth!" John dropped his duffel bag with an even louder thump and took a step forward, pointing a finger at his son.

"Why? Why should I? So we can look normal? So we can _sound_ normal?" Sam, seemingly unaware of his surroundings other than his dad, kept raising his voice louder and louder, and Dean was afraid someone in a bordering room would call the cops or something. He wanted to calm his brother down, but he wasn't sure anything would do that at the moment.

"We're _not_ normal," John replied. "We're never going to _be_ normal. Stop pretending you can be anything but what we are, Sam."

"Why can't I? Leave me here, and maybe I'd have a chance. Go, please," he stepped to the side and gestured to the door. "I know how to take care of myself. I don't need you." He looked down a grumbled to himself.

"What did you just say?" John took a few steps toward his son, bending down as if to listen. There was no need, though. Sam's head snapped up and he screamed his reply.

"I said you're never here anyway! You're always out hunting weird shit, so it's not like I'd miss you if you were gone."

"You're a _brat_," their dad hissed, his face severe. "You'd die before we even got out of the state." He paused a moment before adding, "And maybe we wouldn't come back for your corpse." John returned and grabbed his bag, slinging it over his shoulder as he stormed out of the motel to the car, leaving his two boys gaping.

Dean stood from his spot on the bed and closed the gap between him and his brother at the same time that Sam started to curl in on himself. His face twisted and the tears in his eyes slid down his cheeks, soaking his brother's clothes. Dean didn't mind, though. He just held his brother tighter and watched out the window to make sure John wasn't returning.

"I-I'm sorry," Sam sputtered into his chest wetly. "It's not you I w-wanted to leave."

"I know, Sammy," Dean mumbled, trying to keep his voice even. "It's okay." He shushed his brother and rubbed his back, letting him cry through his shirt. He would have done the same even if his brother had told him outright he was the reason for the tears. He just wanted his brother to be happy. And if that meant not putting salt in his backpack, then… Well, he could put it in his pockets or something. He still needed to protect his brother. He wouldn't apologize for that.


End file.
